Henry Ward, 5th Viscount Bangor

5th Viscount Bangor by Henry Harris Brown (National Trust, Castle Ward)

Henry William Crosbie Ward, 5th Viscount Bangor DL, JP (26 July 1828 – 23 February 1911), styled The Honourable from birth until 1881, was an Irish peer, Conservative politician and soldier.

Background

He was the second son of Edward Ward, 3rd Viscount Bangor and his wife Harriet Margaret Maxwell, second daughter of Henry Maxwell, 6th Baron Farnham. Ward was educated at Rugby School and then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1881, he succeeded his older brother Edward as viscount.

Career

Ward entered the British Army in 1846 and served in the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot. He fought in the Xhosa Wars and retired in 1854 as captain. In 1886, Ward was elected an Irish representative peer to the House of Lords. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of County Down and represented the county also as Justice of the Peace.

Family

On 6 December 1854, he married the Irish entomologist, microscopist, and writer Mary King, a cousin of the astronomer and naturalist William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, and the pioneering photographer Mary Rosse. The couple had five daughters and three sons. Mary Ward (nee King) died in 1869 in history's first car accident, when she was a passenger of an experimental steam car built by the Rosses in Parsonstown.

Henry Ward remarried Elizabeth Eccles, only daughter of Major Hugh Eccles of Cronroe on 8 April 1874. His second marriage was childless. Ward died, aged 82 at his residence Castle Ward and was buried at Ballycutter four days later. He was succeeded in the viscountcy by his youngest and only surviving son Maxwell.